About Me

I was a reporter and columnist for 40 years for a chain of newspapers in the suburbs of Chicago. I'm a military veteran having served in the United States Army Combat Engineers (Cpl. E-4) and a Korean War veteran with an Honorable Discharge from the Armed Forces of the United States of America

Saturday, July 26, 2008

This blogger has already provided proof that it was the Pentagon that canceled the Obama visit to wounded troops in Germany. You can read it here along with a video by NBC/MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell explaining the mixup: http://corksphere.blogspot.com/2008/07/proof-it-was-pentagon-that-blocked.htmlMcCain surrogate blasts Obama's canceled meeting with wounded soldiersObama spokesman says criticism is "wildly inappropriate"Obama aide says Pentagon nixed visit with wounded U.S. troops in GermanySpokesman Robert Gibbs says Obama is "comfortable with the decision"

"The most solemn duty of a commander in chief is to fulfill his responsibility to the men and women who serve this country in uniform," retired Lt. Col. Joe Reypya, speaking on behalf of the McCain, said in a statement. "Barack Obama ... broke that commitment, instead flitting from one European capital to the next."

And in a McCain ad that began airing Saturday, Obama is chided for making "time to go to the gym" instead of visiting with wounded troops.

The ad is being televised in Colorado, Pennsylvania and the Washington area, according to The Associated Press. Watch the ad at Time.com

The incident is representative of the delicacy with which the Obama campaign has attempted to navigate the Illinois senator's entire journey abroad, at once staging elaborate photo-ops beamed back to the American media while at insisting that Obama's trip is not a political one by definition.Obama arrived back in the United States on Saturday night.

The presumptive Democratic nominee had planned on visiting a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, housing American troops injured in Iraq. Watch more on the troop controversy »The visit was expected to come after Obama's speech in Berlin, Germany, but the campaign suddenly announced Thursday that the stop had been canceled, saying Obama had determined that it would be "inappropriate."(The visit was expected to come after Obama's speech in Berlin, Germany, but the campaign suddenly announced Thursday that the stop had been canceled, saying Obama had determined that it would be "inappropriate."

I can appreciate the fact that Republicans aren’t quite sure how to criticize Barack Obama’s international travel over the last week. It has, after all, been an usually successful trip, which the McCain campaign practically goaded Obama into taking.Pentagon blocked Obama’s access to injured U.S. troopsPosted July 26th, 2008 at 9:35 am http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16330.html Click on link to see NBC/MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell report on the incident.

They’ve tried out a few angles, but the attacks have either been foolish, contradictory, or both. Republicans said Obama shouldn’t campaign outside the U.S., but McCain did it first. They said Obama shouldn’t describe himself as a “citizen of the world,” but Reagan used the same line. They said Obama shouldn’t be so popular with people yearning to love America again, but no one’s sure what that actually means.

So, left with literally nothing else, Republicans have turned to an old stand-by: they’re making stuff up.

Obama had planned to visit with injured U.S. troops in Germany before he left the country this week. He scheduled a visit, he wanted to visit, and he arranged for the visit three weeks ago. And suddenly, the meeting was called off, and Obama left the country without having seen the troops.

“A ha!” said the unhinged right. “Obama was blowing off the troops!”

This, not surprisingly, is ridiculous. NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell had a good report yesterday knocking this nonsense down.

This was not, in other words, the fault of Obama or his campaign. The Pentagon called the shots, and the Pentagon prevented the visit. Far from snubbing the troops, Obama and his team were reportedly furious about the interference.Now, as it turns out, some of the confusion started when Obama adviser Robert Gibbs initially announced why the visit had been called off. “The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign,” Gibbs said on Thursday.

Gibbs, in retrospect, seemed to be taking the high ground — he knew the Pentagon had interfered, but didn’t want to blame the Pentagon for the cancellation.

But his statement was seized upon by the McCain campaign and the far-right in general. The unhinged attacks notwithstanding, the reality remains the same. Gibbs set the record straight yesterday.

Senior strategist Robert Gibbs said the visit to the military hospital in Germany had been in the works for about three weeks, with Gration serving as the campaign’s contact with the Pentagon.

The Pentagon cleared the Obama plan to land at the base on either July 15 or 16, Gibbs said. The plane needed the clearance because of restrictions on landing nonmilitary aircraft there, he said.

But then on Wednesday, Gration told Obama aides that the Pentagon had informed him that the visit could be viewed as a campaign stop.“They cited a regulation,” Gibbs said of their point of contact, described as legislative affairs in the office of the secretary.

“We believed that based on the information we received that any presence, even his own and only his own, would get into a back and forth on whether his own presence was a campaign event,” Gibbs said.Obama decided on the flight Wednesday from Tel Aviv to Berlin not to visit the hospital.Asked why he believed the Pentagon would clear the visit, then raised questions about it, Gibbs declined to speculate: “I don’t know what to make of it.”

Asked whether he thought the Pentagon set up the campaign for a political embarrassment, Gibbs said no.

Greg Sargent added:[I]t turns out that the Pentagon did in fact tell Obama that in this case, it was not only “inappropriate,” but against DOD rules, for him to conduct the visit with campaign staff.“We have longstanding Department of Defense policy in regards to political campaigns and elections,” Pentagon spokesperson Elizabeth Hibner told me. “We informed the Obama staff that he was more than welcome to visit as Senator Obama, with Senate staff. However, he could not conduct the visit with campaign staff.”

This really doesn't come as a suprise to anyone who has followed the Iraq war from the start in 2003.The Bush administration, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, misued Iraq intelligence to lead the United States into war with Iraq.Bush misused Iraq intelligenceBy Randall Mikkelsenhttp://tinyurl.com/5h8453WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush and his top policymakers misstated Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism and ignored doubts among intelligence agencies about Iraq's arms programs as they made a case for war, the Senate intelligence committee reported on Thursday.

The report shows an administration that "led the nation to war on false premises," said the committee's Democratic Chairman, Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia. Several Republicans on the committee protested its findings as a "partisan exercise."

The committee studied major speeches by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials in advance of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and compared key assertions with intelligence available at the time.

Statements that Iraq had a partnership with al Qaeda were wrong and unsupported by intelligence, the report said.

It said that Bush's and Cheney's assertions that Saddam was prepared to arm terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction for attacks on the United States contradicted available intelligence.

Such assertions had a strong resonance with a U.S. public, still reeling after al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Polls showed that many Americans believed Iraq played a role in the attacks, even long after Bush acknowledged in September 2003 that there was no evidence Saddam was involved.

The report also said administration prewar statements on Iraq's weapons programs were backed up in most cases by available U.S. intelligence, but officials failed to reflect internal debate over those findings, which proved wrong."

GOP Presidential hopeful JOHN McCAIN and the mainstream media, especially FOX NEWS, continue to LIE to the American public that "the surge" has brought peace and order back to Baghdad. The following is a report of what happened in Baghdad on Saturday, July 26 ALONE:SOURCE: http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/BAGHDAD:#1: A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in Ghazaliyah, western Baghdad at 3 p.m. Friday injuring two soldiers.#2: A roadside bomb detonated in the afternoon inside a popular market in the Karrada district of central Baghdad, wounding six people, including three security members, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.Around 2 pm a roadside bomb targeted civilians in Kamb Sara in Adhamiyah neighborhood (north Baghdad). Six people were injured (including 1 policeman and two Sahwa members).#3: Another roadside bomb went off before midday near an Iraqi army patrol in Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Sleikh, wounding two soldiers and a civilian along with damaging one of the patrol's vehicles, the source said.#4: A third explosion occurred in the day near some dustmen in the al-Jihad neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, injuring two of them and caused damages to a nearby vehicle, the source added.MEANWHILE, IN KIRKUK THIS HAPPENED:Kirkuk:#1: On Friday night a gunman with silencer opened fire on an American patrol in downtown Kirkuk. A 14 year-old kid was killed in that incident .#2: In the morning gunmen opened fire on a combined patrol from Iraqi security forces and Americans. One Iraqi policeman was killed and another was injured

There is a lull in the fighting and violence in Iraq, but sources in Iraq say it is only temporary.Iraqi insurgents have been recruiting women who are seeking revenge for the loss of loved ones to become suicide bombers. When the female suicide bombers will take to the streets of Baghdad and other cities is anyone's guess, but many think it will coincide with the Presidential election in the United States.Women suicide bombers seeking revenge in IraqUS forces say insurgents recruiting women driven by revenge to act as suicide bombers in Iraq. http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/features/?id=27111

BAQUBA, Iraq - In the war-ravaged streets of Iraq, US-led forces say insurgents are recruiting women driven by revenge to act as suicide bombers in the latest tactic against coalition troops.

Motivated by poverty, desperation or vengeance against the US-led military they blame for the deaths of family members, Iraqi women are joining the insurgency.Thursday evening a female suicide bomber killed eight people and wounded 20 after she detonated her explosives-filled vest in Baquba, the capital of Diyala, one of the most dangerous regions in the country.

The bomber targeted a Sahwa or Awakening patrol of Iraqi forces -- former insurgents recruited to fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq and paid by the US military.The blast demonstrates a growing trend of using women in insurgent attacks."One of the reasons for women to kill like this is a desire for vengeance," said Captain Kevin Ryan, commander of a US base in Baquba. "Often, they have lost parents, brothers or children in the fighting."

"Some want vengeance for the fact their families have disappeared," said Iraqi army Colonel Ali Al-Karkhi, who is responsible for security in the Khan Bani Saad district 30 kilometres (19 miles) outside Baquba.

"Last year in the Magdadiya district, a woman who had five sons killed by the Iraqi police, blew herself up close to a group of police recruits looking to join up," he said.

Women without education, or even those who suffer from learning disabilities, are Abu Zarra, leader of an Awakening group west of Baquba, described how some months ago he was visited by a young woman dressed in a long black dress which covered her whole body.

"She was about 17 or 18-years-old and she asked for help. She said she needed to see Abu Zarra. She spoke to me without knowing who I was," he explained.

The tribal chief left to go to a wedding and decided to leave the woman in the care of one of his guards. It was a decision which saved the chief's life.

"She opened her dress and blew herself up," he said. "Three were killed and two wounded. One of my guards was burned alive."

Fearful for their safety, US soldiers patrolling the streets avoid women wearing these long dresses. "Each time you see one, you wonder if she is going to blow herself up," one soldier said.

"Women use attacks as a protest. In Iraq, they are protesting at the loss of their men, the loss of their society and the loss of their country," said Farhana Ali, a US international policy analyst."We can't assume that all Iraqi women suicide attackers are exploited and recruited. We have to ask how many women are doing this because they want to -- that's the more serious question," said Ali.